Olive School helps NHS and homeless charities.
Pupils and staff at The Olive School, Small Heath have been spreading kindness to vulnerable people in the local area as part of their annual Festive Winter Gift Programme.
Due to COVID-19 restrictions, pupils were unable to take part in many of their usual activities. But staff at the school still found ways for pupils to make a difference.
For the month of December, the school was filled with collections and wrapping paper as pupils and staff gathered mountains of food and toiletries to fill gift hampers. The festive hampers were donated to a local care home to help the elderly residents feel remembered during the festive season. More than 1,000 food items were also collected by generous pupils and staff, which were donated to local foodbanks to replenish their dwindling stocks.
Pupils also raised much-needed funds to help local charities continue with their good work. Year 5 and Year 6 pupils took part in a sponsored walk for the local NHS charity, Woodland House, which is part of the Birmingham Women’s Hospital Charity.
A non-uniform day was also held to raise funds for St Basil’s Trust in Birmingham, and kind-hearted pupils donated sleeping bags to help the homeless. St Basil’s is a national charity that helps enables young people to find and keep a home, develop their skills, grow their confidence, increase opportunities, and prevent homelessness.
The school also joined with other Star Academies schools to take part in Food for All Week. For one week, 29 schools across the Star Academies multi-academy trust distributed 50,000 food parcels and meals to those experiencing food poverty. The Olive School helped with this drive by providing more than 100 meals for vulnerable families in the community, as well as donating over 1,000 items to local foodbanks.
Shawkat Chowdhury, Principal at The Olive School, Small Heath, said that this year’s Festive Winter Gift campaign had helped to teach pupils about the importance of giving during challenging times, “This has been a difficult year for many of our families but, throughout it all, they have still continued to demonstrate great kindness to others.
“The Festive Winter Gift campaign has helped pupils to focus on those in greater need and, through this, they have learnt that their small actions can have a positive effect. We are very grateful to everyone who has supported this year’s campaign and who has helped us to make a difference.”